


The Apollo Victorian Pizza

by orphan_account



Category: Starlight Express - Phillips/Stilgoe/Webber
Genre: Based on a SpongeBob SquarePants Episode, Cameos, Gen, Mild Language, Mostly Rusty and GB, Parody, please read the ending note
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:08:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26370013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Rusty and Greaseball embark on a cross-country marathon to deliver a pizza. Hijinks ensue.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	The Apollo Victorian Pizza

It was a slow night for the engines of the Apollo Victoria trainyard. Rusty had just gotten back from pulling a heavy freight train to Railway City when he noticed Greaseball waiting impatiently in line with Electra and C.B. the Caboose.

“Come on, guys! I’d like to get back to my shed ASAP,” Greaseball said irritably as he chewed on a toothpick.

“Calm your axles, Grease. Besides, where else am I gonna clock out of my schedule?”, grinned C.B. as he turned in his timetable.

Suddenly, the nearest phone started ringing. Rusty, despite being exhausted from the day’s work, rushed over to pick up the phone. But before he could grab the phone off the hook, G.B. grabbed it.

“Yo, this is the Apollo Victoria Railyard, what do ya want from us?”, Greaseball said in a jerkish tone.

Greaseball decided to put the phone on speaker so Electra and C.B. could listen in. “Uh….. Hi, can I have a large pepperoni pizza with breadsticks?” The guy stammered on the other end. “I’m willing to pay big for your services.”

Thrilled at the prospect of money, C.B. snatched the phone away from GB and began speaking into it. “Of course we’ll deliver it to you. Just send your address and we’ll have our top train here bring it right over,” C.B. said as he patted G.B. on the shoulder; much to the latter’s slowly-rising anger.

At that moment, Control - the head honcho of the railyard - chimed into the Coach Quarter. “Dinah to the Kitchen… Dinah to the Kitchen… We need you to make an Order 66 with extra boomsticks.”

Dinah quickly went over and began making the pizza (with some assistance from Buffy, of course), but she thought to herself: “Who would want a pizza this late at night?!”

Back at the check-out, Greaseball was getting into a squabble with Control; Electra and C.B. had turned in for the night. “Control, we don’t serve pizza! We don’t even deliver outside the state line,” he complained.

Control quickly replied “Greaseball, you’re forgetting the most important rule of food service: ‘the customer is always right’!”, as G.B. got connected to a boxcar with the pizza in question.

“Can’t you just get Rusty to do it? He loves doing deliveries like this!”, said G.B. as he struggled to uncouple himself.

“Great idea, Greaseball! Take Rusty with you; after all, he needs to learn how the high-speed line works.”

Greaseball wanted to scream as Rusty quickly backed down in front of the train.

“I WOULD’VE PREFERRED ELECTRA!”, shouted Greaseball after Control disconnected from the intercom.

“ISN'T THIS AMAZING, GREASEBALL?! WE GET TO MAKE THE FIRST DELIVERY TO WEST GERSHWIN AND I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO SEE THE THEATRE THERE!”, Rusty said ecstatically as he got hitched up to the front of G.B.

“Good. Then YOU lead,” Greaseball said as he pulled out another toothpick to chew on. Rusty made his way out of the yard and traveled southwest until he pulled onto the sleek high-speed line and stopped dead in his tracks.

“Hey, Rusty. Why’d you stop? We’re gonna be late!”, G.B. moaned as Rusty started fiddling with the GPS.

Rusty shook a bit as he looked back at GB. “I never passed my high-speed test, Greaseball.”

Greaseball rolled his eyes in frustration. “Come on, steamer. It’s just down the way. Just do what you do in school.”

Rusty stared down the long track. He began shaking as Greaseball began getting impatient.

“Back it up, McCoy. Shift into REVERSE. Are you deaf?! I said BACK IT UP!!!”

Rusty freaked out and remembered the one thing Poppa had taught him: “If you don’t know where you’re headed, go full speed in a direction and scream HIGHBALL and the direction you’re going!”

Rusty frantically screamed “HIGHBALL REVERSE WEST!” as his wheels kicked into overdrive. The two engines rocketed in the opposite direction of their destination like a jet engine, with Rusty screaming like a kid on a roller-coaster and G.B. trying to maintain control.

“GIVE ME THE LEAD, MCCOY! GIVE ME THE GODDAMN LEAD!!!”, he shouted over the howling wind whipping in his face.

The next morning, the two engines slowly began crawling to a stop in a seemingly vast landscape of sand and rock. The desert. Rusty had finally calmed down, but G.B. was still in confusion over what the hell happened.

“Highball reverse west,” Rusty said flatly as they came to a stop.

“Well… we backed up. And you know what, McCoy? I think we’re out of fuel on both ends. And you know what else? We’re in the middle of fucking NOWHERE!!!!”, Greaseball shouted as he disconnected from Rusty to take in his surroundings.

“And you know what else else? I think the pizza’s getting cold. Maybe if I put in my firebox, we can-” Rusty never finished that sentence, because Greaseball’s mind snapped. HARD. “AND THE PIZZA’S COLD?! OH, THE PIZZA’S COLD; NOT THE PIZZA! STARLIGHT FUCKING EXPRESS ON A STICK, HOW CAN IT GET ANY WORSE?!”, Greaseball ranted before the boxcar that carried the pizza began rolling downhill before crashing at the bottom. Thankfully, Rusty still had it in its hands.

“Well, we can still deliver it on foot - or wheels,” Rusty said, trying to bring a positive light to the situation. Greaseball seemed eager to hit him.

“We don't have to,” Greaseball said, pointing to a nearby steam train fueling point not even 25 feet way. Rusty fueled himself up and started dragging Greaseball and the pizza west towards the state line. After a while, Rusty started to sing; his voice, while not exactly on the scale of Luciano Pavarotti, was still more bearable to listen to than Emma Watson’s auto-tuned singing from the live-action “Beauty and the Beast”.

_“The Apollo Victoria Pizza, is the pizza / For you and me / The Apollo Victoria Pizza, is the pizza-”_

Greaseball chimed in: _“And my wheels are killing me!”_

Rusty stopped with a quick jolt and looked excited. Greaseball, in pure confusion, asked “McCoy, what are you doing?!”

Rusty replied, “It's an old-time railroading trick. Poppa’s older friend taught it to me once!”

Greaseball groaned. “Rusty, this is no time for-” Rusty shushed him as he could sense something.

“It’s working!”, shouted the steamer. Greaseball looked around, wondering what the hell he was talking about. Rusty grabbed him and pointed towards the distance.

“FREIGHT TRAIN! 16 CARS!”, he shouted as Greaseball saw the faint outline of a diesel-fuel train barreling down the hill. Rusty gave him the pizza and grinned. “Now I can show you how Poppa and his siblings used to hitchhike!”

Rusty ran into the middle of the tracks and started dancing while making weird noises with his whistle. Greaseball couldn't believe his eyes, but he shrugged and sat down to play the spoons for Rusty’s musical accompaniment.

For a brief minute, it looked like the train was slowing down. Greaseball was in pure excitement, shouting to Rusty “He’s stopping, HE'S ACTUALLY STOPPING!!!” But it didn't take long for the diesel to see that the train was, in fact, NOT slowing down. So he pushed Rusty out of the way as the train sped through. The sounds of his horn as he glared at Rusty were songs of anger and disappointment.

A while later, the two engines got caught in the middle of a sandstorm. Against the howling wind, Rusty’s faint singing could be heard:

“ _ The Apollo Victoria Pizza is the pizza, for you and me / The Apollo Victoria Pizza is the pizza, free delivery / The Apollo Victoria Pizza is the pizza, very tasty- _ ”

Rusty got cut off as the wind managed to lift him off the tracks and tossed him about like a ragdoll. Greaseball, who had covered his face with a makeshift mask, watched as Rusty clung onto the pizza for dear life.

“Will you let go of that stupid pizza already, McCoy?!”, shouted GB over the blustery weather.

“I can’t, Greaseball; it’s for the customer!”, Rusty responded back as loudly as he could.

“WHO GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THE CUSTOMER?!”, Greaseball shouted even louder as Rusty flew by him.

“I do!”, Rusty responded as Greaseball tried grabbing the steamer’s hand, only to miss by mere centimeters.

“Well, guess what, steam train? I DON’T!!!”, Greaseball screamed. All of a sudden, the sandstorm came to a stop. Rusty gasped and looked at G.B. in shock; how could he say such a thing? “Greaseball!”, Rusty said as the storm immediately picked back up. G.B. tried grabbing him again, only to be kicked in the face onto the sand by Rusty’s foot.

Rusty flew overhead and Greaseball grabbed onto his ankle, dragging him along. “RUSTY, LET GO OF THE PIZZA!”, G.B. shouted as he began sand-surfing throughout the dunes.

“NO, IT’S FOR THE CUSTOMER!”, shouted Rusty back as he gripped onto the pizza box as hard as he could. G.B. was about to respond back, when he noticed a big-ass tornado raging towards them. Greaseball and Rusty got sucked up into the tornado, and as G.B. looked down and saw how high they were, he screamed at Rusty, “HANG ON TO THE PIZZA, MCCOY!”

The tornado spit them out and the two began free-falling through the air. Rusty made a makeshift parachute using the fire blanket he stored in his cab, while still holding onto the pizza with a death grip. Greaseball, meanwhile, hit the ground hard.

G.B. looked around and wondered “Where’s the tracks?” before coming to one conclusion: they were truly lost. No tracks meant no way to complete the delivery. As he panicked, Rusty finally descended and packed away the fire blanket while making sure the pizza didn’t get damaged. He saw G.B. running around screaming.

“How are we gonna get home?! Which way do we go?! What are we going to do now?! THERE’S NO TRACKS HERE!”, G.B. shouted as Rusty noticed a rock that had one half coated in moss. Remembering what Poppa had told him, he got G.B.’s attention long enough for him to say, “I think town’s this way.”

“Oh, don’t tell me, Jethro. The pioneers?”, G.B. said sarcastically as he came over to Rusty.

“Yep,” Rusty nodded as he pointed towards the half-mossed rock. G.B. looked down at it as Rusty explained. “Moss always points to civilization.”

G.B. looked in the direction the moss was supposedly pointing at. He had been through sandstorms, nearly saved Rusty from being hit by a fuel train at top speed and NOW he was supposed to take directions from moss?

“So let me get this straight; you think that we, WE of all people, should go THAT way?”, G.B. asked Rusty for clarification. Rusty eagerly nodded, which prompted the diesel to suddenly do a 180º and head in the other direction. Rusty quickly followed behind, only for G.B. to dismiss his concerns with a solid “Trust me, I know where we’re going.”

But had G.B. trusted more in Rusty’s amateur pioneering skills, he would’ve learned that the moss DID in fact point to a small town named Junklanta, where they could’ve hitched a bus ride back to the state line and solved their dilemma almost immediately. But seeing as how G.B. prefers to think with his d**k first and NOT use his brains, well...

As they trudged through the sand trying to find tracks, Rusty began singing that damn song again:  “ _The Apollo Victoria Pizza is the pizza absolut-tively_...”

As they passed the 5-mile marker, Rusty began beatboxing like the Rockies did back at home, using the pizza box as a stand-in for a turntable with scratchable vinyl discs.

As they passed the 10-mile marker, Rusty was chuffing backwards and shaking his coal tender like Nicki Minaj while Greaseball chomped on his last toothpick so as not to gag.

As they passed the 15-mile marker, Rusty was soulfully singing his soul out on the next verse as Greaseball finally seemed close to snapping.

“ _ The Apollo Victo-o-o-o-o-o-ori-a-an Pi-izza, is the pizza, yeah-ah, for you a-and- _ ”

Just as Rusty was about to hit the high note, Greaseball - having had enough of this steamer’s singing - swung around suddenly and kicked Rusty right between the legs. Reeling from the pain, Rusty clutched his precious little bolts and sang out the final note as high and as loudly as the normal person could hear.

“ _ ME-HE-HE-HE-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE- _ ”

Rusty felt a strong thud hit him in the side of the head, and fell to the ground blacking out. Greaseball put down the nearby baseball bat he picked up and finally sighed in relief; he could have some peace and quiet for a couple of minutes.

A few hours later, Greaseball and Rusty were slowly beginning to tire out from all their chuffing as they passed the 30-mile marker. Rusty’s singing had gone off the deep end, going from slightly comprehensible to downright slurring.

“ _...The pizza, for you… Apo… The Victorian and the… Apollo and the… pizza inside… _ ”

A few moments later, Rusty and Greaseball had finally collapsed from heat exhaustion and were sweltering under the heat of the sun. Greaseball, picking himself up, looked towards Rusty weakly.

“McCoy, we gotta eat SOMETHING!”, G.B. groaned out of desperation. Rusty, looking up, brushed some sand out of his face as he dug around in his knapsack.

“Poppa told me that in times of hardship, the pioneer engines would drink… oil from a can,” said the steamer as he pulled out a rusted oil can. G.B. greedily snatched it away and began drinking and sucking on the pipe for anything.

“No, wait; maybe it wasn’t canned oil,” Rusty said awkwardly as he pondered. G.B., disgusted, began spitting it out and drying his tongue. “Maybe it was water? No; no, it was lube. Or-”   


“GIVE ME THE PIZZA!”, G.B. shouted; he was really mad now.

“Wait, I remember now! It WAS canned oil,” Rusty shouted alarmed as he clutched the pizza box to his chest. Greaseball clenched his fists as he shouted at the steamer to give it to him. “NO! We promised it was for the customer!”, Rusty said defensively as he remained firm with the box in his hands.

“You’re right; it IS for the customer,” Greaseball spoke suavely as he calmed down and looked towards Rusty. “Maybe we better check on it, just to make sure it’s alright.” G.B. tipped open the box, only for Rusty to close it defensively. “No, I think I saw something…”

Rusty finally loosened his grip to let G.B. open the box. The pizza, for SOME reason, did not have a single dent of damage on it despite the absolute hell it had been through over the course of the day. The breadsticks were also somehow still intact. The two engines looked at the Italian delicacy like they were staring at the Roman goddess of love in all her glory; this simple 8-slice pizza made by Dinah was THAT beautiful to their eyes.

“Nope, I was wrong. It looks okay; sure is a FINE-looking pizza, wouldn’t you agree, Rusty?”, G.B. crooned as Rusty gazed down at it.

“Yeah…”, Rusty moaned as he felt his stomach growl.

“What’s that? Is that the cheese… and the pepperoni? And the breadsticks with marinara sauce?”, G.B. spoke with a chocolatey voice that would make any coach swoon for him in an instant.

“Yes…”, Rusty hissed as he felt his steam pressuring up. He licked his lips, and was just about to reach in and take a slice when his common sense overcame his basic desires and he slammed the box shut before holding it to his side away from G.B.

“Wait a minute! I know what you’re trying to do, Greaseball; I’m NOT letting you eat the pizza!”, Rusty shouted at G.B., who had finally lost his patience.

“Give me that pizza! Don’t make me take it away from you, McCoy,” G.B. growled as he balled his fists up. Rusty glared at him to get away before racing off. G.B. soon began chasing after the steamer, desperately hungry for that pizza.

The diesel chased the steamer around for a while, but the heat exhaustion combined with the crippling starvation soon tired G.B. out. But since Rusty was a little careless at times, he bumped right into the back of G.B., who swung around and pointed at the steamer.

“I want that pizza! And you’re gonna hand it over ONE WAY OR ANOTHER!”, shouted Greaseball as Rusty quivered. But out the corner of Rusty’s eye, he saw something that he knew would solve ALL of their problems.

“LOOK! We’re saved, G.B.; we’re SAVED!”, Rusty shouted as he got up and danced ecstatically. Though in his head he heard a conga beat, to Greaseball, this steamer was finally off the rails mentally. He watched as Rusty picked up the pizza box and made his way over to a giant rock just a few feet away.

“That’s just a stupid rock!”, Greaseball shouted as Rusty approached the stone slab.

“It’s not just a rock; it’s a BOULDER!”, Rusty cried before hugging the boulder like it was his best friend Dustin. Greaseball, too worn out from chasing Rusty, simply stared with his eyes squinted from the heat. Rusty climbed the boulder until he was on top of it, sitting down and placing the pizza box beside him.

“It’s a big...beautiful...old boulder! Oh, the pioneer trains used to ride these suckers for miles! And it’s still in great shape!,” Rusty panted as he turned around to face Greaseball. At this point, G.B. had already been on the verge of snapping three to four times throughout their road trip through hell, but this time, he felt really close to it.

“Rusty. Rusty McCoy. Dear little Rusty McCoy, the poster-child for why steam trains and sleeper cars should NOT procreate. Can I ask you to do one thing? One simple little thing; the most important simple thing you can possibly do to improve my situation. And that is will you please, for the love of everything that is good and just in this world, forget about THE STUPID GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING PIONEERS?!?! I mean, seriously; have you ever noticed that there’s absolutely NONE of them left?! That’s because A) they were lousy hitchhikers, B) they ate canned oil and C) they took directions from MOSS! And now you’re telling me that they, THEY of all people, thought they could DRIVE-”

Greaseball was suddenly dazed and confused as he felt something run him over at top speed and leave him flat as a pancake on the ground. As he pried himself up, he saw Rusty on the boulder speeding off into the distance. Instead of questioning HOW the thing worked, G.B. sped off into the distance after him. “...rocks? HOLD UP THERE, JETHRO!!!”

After catching up, G.B. and Rusty tore through the plains and across the state line into West Gershwin. Although they passed by the theatre, Rusty said it could wait for another time; right now, they had a delivery to complete.

The two engines, at long last, pulled up in front of a stately country house named Sydmonton. Rusty, tired but triumphant, looked at Greaseball with hope as he got off the boulder. “I can’t wait to see the look on the customer’s face!”

Rusty made his way to the front door and rang the doorbell. The door swung open to reveal an old man. His name was Andrew Lloyd Webber, a hardly-known composer of musical theatre.

“Congratulations, sir. Your Apollo Victorian Pizza is here at long, LONG last!”, Rusty declared as he held out the box. Webber took it from him and gave him a weak smile.

“Thank you, good sir. I’ve been dying for one of these-”, Webber said before stopping short. He examined the pizza box in his hands, and opened to make sure everything was there. One cheese-pepperoni pizza, one bag of breadsticks with marinara sauce, and…

“Where’s my drink?”, asked Webber confusedly. Rusty blinked twice, before shrugging awkwardly at the composer. “What drink?”, Rusty asked innocently.

“My drink? My diet Dr. Pepper; don’t tell me you forgot my drink!”, Webber spoke with rising frustration as Rusty got his order notepad and checked what had been written down. “But, you didn’t order any-”

“HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO EAT THIS PIZZA WITHOUT MY BLOODY DRINK?!”, Webber shouted at the steamer. Rusty quivered, as he struggled to find the words. He felt the pizza box being shoved back in his face by the composer.

“Didn’t you ever ONCE think of the customer? You call yourself a delivery train?! WELL, I’M NOT BUYING! GOOD DAY, SIR!!!”, shouted the irritable composer as he slammed the door in Rusty’s face. Greaseball cringed, as he got off the boulder. Rusty chuffed back over, his face visibly straining to remain smiling.

“Rusty? It’s okay, dude. Rusty?”, Greaseball quietly said before Rusty dropped to his knees, dropping the pizza box on the ground before laying flat on the sidewalk. As G.B. watched, Rusty began sobbing his heart out. His sobs sounded like a broken whistle straining to make a sound; the rejection was THAT painful for him to process.

Greaseball watched this steam engine, this man whose optimism had prevailed through everything, lying at his feet sobbing like a complete wreck. It was at that moment G.B., who had been close to snapping several times throughout this whole ordeal, finally broke. He had endured sandstorms, almost being run over by a fuel train, heat exhaustion and crippling starvation, and NOW he had to endure seeing his co-worker experience a brutal dose of reality.

Maybe he was appalled at the way this customer - this old FART - had treated Rusty without considering what he and G.B. had gone through. Maybe it was the fact he didn’t bother paying them despite telling C.B. he would. Or maybe it was the prospect that this rejection made EVERYTHING regarding the long journey and the ridiculous obstacles the two went through seem like it was all for nothing. In either case, G.B. was more than pissed; he was fucking ENRAGED.

Grabbing the pizza box with such a vitriolic force, G.B. stormed up the steps to the front door and banged on the door several times before Webber opened up again.

“Another one? Look, I told your little friend I’m not paying for that!”, Webber stated firmly as he stared at the big diesel.

“Oh, really? Well, guess what, Mr. Music of the Night, Mr. Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats, Mr. This Jesus Must Die? This pizza is on the FUCKING  **HOUSE!!!** ”, shouted G.B. as he slammed the pizza box right into Webber’s face, knocking him out cold. G.B. quickly stormed in, found his wallet and took all the money he had inside - which equated to about £15,000.

As G.B. came back to the boulder, he saw Rusty had finally calmed down. Rusty looked up at the diesel, who was brushing off his hands and grinning at the steamer.

“Did he change his mind, Grease?”, Rusty asked pathetically as G.B. helped him up to his feet.

“He sure did, McCoy. Ate the whole thing in one bite; breadsticks included,” Greaseball said confidently as he showed Rusty the ‘tip’ money.

“No drink?”, Rusty asked hopefully as he took half the money from Greaseball and put it in his satchel. Greaseball shook his head as the two engines climbed up on top of the boulder.

“Well, the pizza got delivered; now, if you’d be so kind to drop me off at my shed…”, Greaseball suggested, hoping Rusty would still be dumb enough to give him a free lift back to the roundhouse.

“Are you kidding, G.B.? We have just enough time to make it back to the yards! HIGHBALL FORWARD EAST!”, Rusty shouted before he and Greaseball shot down the tracks. In an instant, they were in front of the trainyard’s entrance, where they saw C.B. and Pearl waiting for them.

“Rusty! How was your delivery?”, Pearl called to him, relieved that her boyfriend was still alive.

“Hey, Grease; where’s MY share of the pizza pay?!”, C.B. called to Greaseball, who was utterly dumbfounded.

“Yards?”, G.B. whimpered. He and Rusty had been stranded in the middle of nowhere, traversed Starlight knows how many miles, crossed the state line into West Gershwin to deliver the accursed pizza… and their yard was just a “Highball” away? G.B. collapsed to the ground utterly exhausted and passed out, but not before groaning to the three next to him.

“Oh, my aching wheels…”

The End

**Author's Note:**

> This is not my work, it's written by some friends and they gave me permission to post it here as either doesn't have an AO3


End file.
